Friendless? Never!

'DEAR God, I do need a friend right now!'' It was not a very inspired prayer, but it was the best I could do at that moment. I had been married just a short time and was living far from my family and longtime friends. My husband had gone on a two-week business trip, and I was home by myself. I had been busy with my teaching job all week and had gotten along just fine. But the prospect of a whole, long weekend alone loomed large. I burst into tears. Even though my prayer was simple, the turning to my dear Father-Mother God was sincere and total. It was based on a much-proved understanding that God is always present, caring for us, providing for us, revealing His love to us. Within the hour I received three telephone calls, including an invitation to dinner that night and another invitation to attend an all-day Sunday School workshop the next day. I felt loved, cared for, and befriended. Divine Love was showing me, in terms I could easily understand, the perfect presence and allness of infinite Love, God. Who hasn't felt alone? Who hasn't longed for someone to confide in? Can we really expect God to help us in the area of friendships? Yes! There's nothing God cannot do. There isn't anything too small or too big to trust God with. The Bible tells us of God's tender relationship to His creation, of His complete care for His child, such as a father and mother would have for their child. The Bible also tells us that God is Love; that God is One, All, everywhere at all times; that God is constant, unchanging, invariable. That perfect Love that is God is our friend. Since Love is infinite, filling all space, we must be in it at all times. There could not be one instant when we could be unloved, friendless, alone. Now, this God who is Love is constantly expressing Himself everywhere, continually showing forth His perfect love in an infinite variety of ways. When we understand this we can begin to perceive the evidence of the perfection of Love reflected in everyone we meet! The one God, perfect Love, is everywhere and everywhere expressed. How can we ever be alone? Christ Jesus knew he was never alone. It didn't matter where he was, he always knew divine Love was right there with him. John's Gospel records that Jesus told the Pharisees when they questioned his record of who he was, ''I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me'' (8:16). Later as he foretold the upcoming details of his crucifixion he said, ''Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me'' (John 16:32). Understanding his oneness with Love enabled Jesus to live that fact, whether he was with friends, strangers, or crucifiers. This undeviating spiritual standpoint ensured his triumphant victory over the hatred that attempted to destroy him. Jesus was our Exemplar, our Teacher, our Way-shower. Just as he couldn't be alone, so we can't either. We too are in and of this one infinite Love as the immediate expression of that Love. As we understand these facts, we too can feel the constant certainty of never being alone. We must grow away from depending on personal friends to finding God, divine Love, as the source of all good, of all love and friendship. In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, warns us of the danger in depending on personal friendships rather than turning to divine Love. She writes: ''Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. . . . Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science'' (p. 266). We can't possibly be alone in the kingdom of Love, in the totality of Love's allness and oneness. We need never settle for loneliness or aloneness again. We can understand and prove our present all-one-ness with Love and feel moment by moment the joy that includes.